Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works eBook

And
beautiful Lalage!—­turn here thine eyes!
Thou
askest me if I could speak of love,
Knowing
what I know, and seeing what I have seen
Thou
askest me that—­and thus I answer thee—­
Thus
on my bended knee I answer thee. (kneeling.)
Sweet
Lalage, I love thee—­love thee—­love
thee;
Thro’
good and ill—­thro’ weal and woe, I
love thee.
Not
mother, with her first-born on her knee,
Thrills
with intenser love than I for thee.
Not
on God’s altar, in any time or clime,
Burned
there a holier fire than burneth now
Within
my spirit for thee. And do I love?
(arising.)
Even
for thy woes I love thee—­even for thy woes—­
Thy
beauty and thy woes.

Lal. Alas, proud Earl,
Thou
dost forget thyself, remembering me!
How,
in thy father’s halls, among the maidens
Pure
and reproachless of thy princely line,
Could
the dishonored Lalage abide?
Thy
wife, and with a tainted memory—­
My
seared and blighted name, how would it tally
With
the ancestral honors of thy house,
And
with thy glory?

Pol. Speak not to me of glory!
I
hate—­I loathe the name; I do abhor
The
unsatisfactory and ideal thing.
Art
thou not Lalage, and I Politian?
Do
I not love—­art thou not beautiful—­
What
need we more? Ha! glory! now speak not of it:
By
all I hold most sacred and most solemn—­
By
all my wishes now—­my fears hereafter—­
By
all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven—­
There
is no deed I would more glory in,
Than
in thy cause to scoff at this same glory
And
trample it under foot. What matters it—­
What
matters it, my fairest, and my best,
That
we go down unhonored and forgotten
Into
the dust—­so we descend together?
Descend
together—­and then—­and then perchance—­

Lal. Why dost thou pause, Politian?

Pol. And then perchanceArise
together, Lalage, and roam
The
starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,
And
still—­